


Say Something [+Podfic]

by xinasvoice



Series: Second Spin [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Bring Back Black, Coparenting, Feels, Happy Ending, Light Angst, M/M, Podfic, Podfic & Podficced Works, Podfic Length: 10-20 Minutes, Raising Teddy, chosen family, people having serious conversations while babies are making noise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-22
Updated: 2018-12-22
Packaged: 2019-09-24 22:18:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17109152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xinasvoice/pseuds/xinasvoice
Summary: Sirius has returned from the afterlife, and he is all Remus has ever wanted. Dora still yearns for things she can’t have. Teddy is mostly concerned with a wooden spoon.This story follows my longer work, Second Spin, but can also be read as a stand-alone.





	Say Something [+Podfic]

**Author's Note:**

  * For [aimforthedogstar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aimforthedogstar/gifts).



> Podfic duration: 20min 16sec  
> [.m4a audio file](https://soundcloud.com/user-824292289/say-something) (41.6MB) ~ [Buy it on iTunes](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1w-5X9vVQS9iTKUuy1KfBiAPJ7jYwJ0bn/view?usp=sharing>%20.m4b%20audiobook%20file</a>%2040.4MB\)%0A%0AEnding%20music%20is%20Lifening%20by%20Snow%20Patrol.%20<a%20href=)
> 
> Thank you to beta reader/listeners: She Who Must Always Be Named, [ForeverShippingJohnlock](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ForeverShippingJohnlock/works), and the oh so very sweet [Emily_Woods](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emily_Woods/pseuds/Emily_Woods), who recently recorded her own first podfic!
> 
> Gifted to aimforthedogstar because they are awesome and left me an awesome comment, and because it's Christmas and you can't stop me from giving things.
> 
>  
> 
> [Follow me on Tumblr](xinasvoice.tumblr.com)

[ ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/158228914@N03/32550173328/in/dateposted-public/)

 

“It was noses first with me,” Dora said.

Her words were directed at Remus, but it was Teddy she was watching. She and Remus were sitting on the floor on opposite sides of the room. She had chosen to sit far away on purpose, Remus was sure, but it was hard to feel stressed about it when Sirius was here as well, sitting behind him on the couch, running his hands through Remus’ hair in slow, caressing strokes.

Teddy was hard to look away from, and not just because his hair was currently the same vivid pink as Dora’s. Sometimes Remus felt like he could spend whole hours—days, even—just watching his nine month-old son play and enjoy life. Right now Teddy was crawling around in recreational circles on the floor of the living room of No. 12 Grimmauld Place, a large wooden spoon held firmly in his mouth by his four new teeth. Cheerful growling noises emerged from around the spoon, especially when his circuits of the room brought him back to Remus’ legs, which he climbed over with the enthusiasm and determination of a professional athlete.

“Is it intentional yet, do you think?” Dora asked.

“Of course it’s intentional,” Sirius said before Remus could answer. He was lounging haphazardly on the couch, also watching Teddy. “He did my hair yesterday, as soon as he saw me.”

He preened a little with pride, as unironic in his vanity as he had been at sixteen. Remus grinned and leaned his head against the side of Sirius’ leg, marveling for the thousandth time in the last twenty-four hours at the miracle of him. Not only had Sirius returned after over two years of being dead, he had also somehow shed the cloak of misery and fear that had weighed on him after the war and Azkaban, and he had regained his ability to touch as well. He was back to his old self. It had been so long since Remus had seen him like this that he had almost forgotten what it was like. Having Sirius back with him again was like carrying a gasp of joy around in his chest, like there was a huge, energetically buoyant feeling living inside him at every waking moment. It was sheer bliss.

Remus was drawn from this honey-sweet reveling in Sirius’ presence when Dora abruptly scooped Teddy up into her arms. Remus opened his mouth to scold her for interrupting Teddy’s game—and to warn her to be careful of the spoon Teddy was chewing to make sure she didn’t accidentally jab it into the roof his mouth—but then he saw the way she pressed her cheek to his pink curls and the desperate tension in her arms, and he stopped himself.

Today was her last day with Teddy. Tonight, in just a few hours, she would go back to her Auror work in Somalia, leaving Remus and Teddy and all of England behind. It wasn’t right. Teddy should have his mother, and Dora should have a home. Remus knew, deep down, that she probably wanted both. It was his own fault she had left, and it was his own fault she wouldn’t stay. He had broken her heart. He could see how much being around him still hurt her, even after six months of geographical isolation.

He wasn’t sure he wanted her to leave either. He might not have loved her in the way she had hoped he would, but he did love her. He did want something with her. For a few weeks after Teddy was born, he had thought he might have it—a _family_ , one that didn’t care that he turned into a monster every month. Dora hadn’t cared, just like Sirius didn’t. Remus had cherished that about her, even though the mutually passionate romance she had dreamed of had never materialized. He would have been content with what they actually did have, a genuine platonic affection for each other. Most people wouldn’t have thought that was enough for a married couple. But it had meant the world to him.

Unfortunately, it hadn’t been enough for her, and he couldn’t blame her. He hadn’t promised her, in their wedding vows, to love her like a sister or to adore her as the mother of his child. He had promised her his whole heart, even though on some level he knew he wouldn’t be able to give it to her. He understood that she couldn’t accept a piece when she craved the whole. He had experienced a similar struggle with Sirius. Even though it hadn’t been Sirius’ fault, their inability to touch had worn Remus down, little by little, day by day, until by the end he had been only too ready to rise to any bait Sirius—in his depressed, traumatized, trapped state—might offer. He wouldn’t ask Dora to go through that, not even for Teddy’s sake and certainly not because he himself missed her.

Even if he were willing to do it for either of those reasons, there was another obstacle, and it was currently carding its fingers through Remus’ hair. Sirius had always been the jealous type. It didn't matter how platonic Remus’ feelings for Dora were. If she stayed, it could drive a wedge of envy between him and Sirius, and he wasn’t willing to risk that for anything, not when he had just gotten him back.

Remus took a deep breath, curling his hand around Sirius’ bare foot where it lay next to his hip. He couldn’t handle even thinking about doing something that might drive Sirius away. It was selfish. A better father, a better man, would have risked anything to keep his family together, but Remus was tired of always having to be the better man. He would rather be a happy one.

He watched Dora take Teddy to the window, talking to the baby too quietly for the others to hear. After a few minutes, she turned back to the room, announcing, “I’d better go pack.”

She knelt down to give Teddy to Remus. He took the baby into his arms gratefully, using the weight of his small rounded body to soothe himself when he saw her face twist as she started to stand up again. Maybe she did want to stay. But he wasn’t going to ask. Not after all he had done to her. He couldn’t.

“Don’t.” Sirius’ hand abruptly left Remus’ head and shot out to take hold of Dora’s wrist. “Don’t pack. Don’t go at all.”

Dora colored a bit and looked away, although she didn’t resist Sirius’ grip. “I have to. I can’t stay here.”

“There’s plenty of space,” Sirius said.

“You don’t understand—” she said, voice starting to rise, but he interrupted her.

“Actually, I think I do. I know Remus isn’t easy to get over. I never did manage it myself. But it doesn’t seem to me like you’re any happier going off alone,” Sirius said, with a level of insight Remus hadn’t realized he was capable of. “And Teddy needs his mother. I watched you with him today. He hardly knows you. It’s not right. He needs you to love him.”

Dora winced and swallowed. Her eyes darted around the room in distress, landing everywhere but on Remus himself. He saw the longing in the line of her shoulders, but he still couldn’t bring himself to say anything. There was no point. He couldn’t fix what he had broken. He couldn’t give her what she wanted.

“I said it to Remus and Harry last night, and I’ll say it to you now,” Sirius continued. He released Dora’s wrist. She backed up a few paces but didn’t leave. “The afterlife is pretty nice. People can still be together, and learn things, and grow things. But there are some things we have to do while we’re alive, like loving people.”

“Teddy has lots of people to love him,” Dora said. Her hair was wilting a little as they talked, the pink fading to the sad, brown color it had been back when she had been pining hopelessly over Remus. “He has a whole house full of people. He doesn’t need me.”

“Maybe not,” Sirius said. “But what about you? Is there anyone in Somalia that loves you like Teddy would—if you’d give him the chance?”

“Of course not. The whole point was to get away from everyone!” Her voice rose sharply. She had always been quick to anger, just like Sirius. Remus sighed internally and braced himself for the inevitable fight, but to Remus’ surprise, Sirius didn’t match her tone.

“Why would you want to get away from _everyone?”_ Far from rising to the bait, Sirius seemed perfectly calm, so much so that Remus leaned back to look at him, but Sirius’ eyes, fixed on Dora, conveyed nothing but warm curiosity. “I understand wanting to get away from Remus, but what about your parents? Your friends in the Order?”

Dora’s arms snapped out to her sides in an angry gesture. “I don’t want to be around any of them! Not when they all think—”

She broke off, turning away and retreating into herself in the way that had always reminded Remus of a porcupine, angry spines puffing up to cover tender insides.

“Think what?” Sirius asked.

Teddy, meanwhile, had grown bored with sitting passively in Remus’ lap and wiggled away to continue his crawling game, stopping now and then to bang his spoon experimentally against various surfaces and listening with grave interest to the resulting noises.

Dora winced at a particularly loud knock of the spoon and burst out, “That I’m a silly, shallow little girl who should just—get over it! Who never should have gotten _into_ it at all!”

She crossed her arms over her chest, and tense silence fell for a few seconds until it was broken by Teddy, who had apparently decided that, of the available surfaces in the room, the radiator produced the most satisfactory sound. He began banging the spoon rhythmically on the resonant metal, grunting along in time with a melody suspiciously similar to one of the songs Remus liked to sing to him.

“Well, I don’t think that. And I doubt anyone else does either, seeing as your friends and family aren’t all _jerks_.” Sirius said with friendly amusement. “Besides, falling in love with Remus is definitely not silly—a bit…optimistic, maybe—but just look at him! He’s irresistible!”

Remus coughed and shoved Sirius’ knee a little, because this was surely not the time for flirting. Dora huffed, but Remus saw her lips twitch towards a smile.

“Also,” Sirius continued, undaunted, “how much of a mistake could it all have been when you made _Teddy_ , who is not only adorable but well on his way to becoming the next Freddy Mercury?”

Dora laughed a little despite herself but then doubled down, eyebrows twisting towards each other. “It doesn’t matter anyways. I won’t stay where I’m not wanted.”

“I want you here,” Sirius said immediately. He gave Remus a little nudge. “Remus, say something!”

Remus, bit his lip, determined to hold back all the things he was bursting to say. If only she knew, if only he could make her understand, if only it wouldn’t drive Sirius away—

He was still huddled on the floor, with Dora looming tall over him like a monument to his failures and regrets. He could feel the shadow of Sirius sitting behind him as well, could hear the echo of the words Sirius had said to him long ago, the ones that had finally driven them apart, “ _You can’t have both.”_

But it had never made sense to him to live that way, to shut himself off from everyone but the one person he was supposed to be the most in love with, as if all the other connections didn’t matter. And how could he, when there were people like Dora in the world, people that drew him in like a riverbed draws water?

Even now, he was drawn to her. His eyes were drawn up to her face, only to find that for the first time today, she was looking back. When he met her eyes, he couldn’t pretend anymore. He could see all of her pain and resentment laid out right in front of him. He felt the physical reflection of it in himself, felt it twist him up inside, felt his heart breaking right alongside hers.

When Sirius had died, Remus had thought there was nothing left of his life. He thought he wouldn’t ever be happy again. And then Dora had come along. She was the only one who had seen how miserable he was, the only one who had guessed what Sirius had meant to him. She had listened. She had surprised him with her compassion and her joy for life. She had shown him he could still laugh. At first he had tried to ignore the blind devotion she felt for him, but eventually it grew too strong to be ignored, and after all she had done, he figured it was only fair that he should try to return the favor. If he was really honest with himself, it had made him feel good to be so wanted. Having the power to make her happy had made him feel…powerful, and he had spent so much of his life feeling powerless. But he had been kidding himself. He couldn’t make her happy then, and he honestly didn’t think he could now either.

But maybe he could do _something._

Teddy, meanwhile, had abandoned both the radiator and the spoon to crawl back into Remus’ lap. He always seemed to know when Remus was distressed, no matter how much Remus tried to hide it. They were connected that way. It wasn’t the kind of thing Remus could deny or push aside in favor of someone else. And yet, Teddy’s presence in Remus’ life hadn’t dominated his life or relationships, it had introduced him to new ones, had helped form this whole little community they lived in now, in this old family home that was stuffed to the brim but still, undoubtedly, had room for one more.

He took a deep breath, trying to think of words that would comfort Dora without activating Sirius’ jealousy. It might not be possible. But he had to try.

By the time he looked up, Dora had retreated back into herself, looking away with her arms crossed over her chest, but he had already made up his mind.

“I’m sorry,” he said, speaking up at last. “I was deluding myself when I agreed to marry you. I was lonely and selfish. But I do care about you.”

Dora rolled her eyes, and the sullenness on her face made her look even younger than she was. “As a _friend.”_

“I don’t have many of those, you know,” he said quietly. “Your friendship meant a lot to me. It still does. But you’re not just my friend.” He let go of Teddy with one hand so he could touch Sirius again, wrapping his hand around his ankle and squeezing reassuringly when he felt the muscles tense. “You’re Teddy’s mother. You’re my-my family, and I would love it if you stayed here, both for him and for me. I—I’ve missed you so much.”

She made a small sound, perhaps of disgust, and abruptly whirled around, putting her back to them. Remus sagged back against Sirius’ legs, knowing he had failed, once again. He closed his eyes and turned his face towards Sirius’ knee when he felt Sirius’ hand on his head again. Teddy started to squirm, and Remus relaxed his arms, giving space for him to crawl away if he wanted to.

Then the weight of the baby in his lap was suddenly gone, and he opened his eyes to see Dora kneeling in front of him, with Teddy back in her arms and tears on her face.

“All right,” she said. She bent her head down to Teddy’s face and smiled shakily at him. “I’ll-I’ll stay with you.”

Remus beamed, feeling an enormous rush of joy wash over him. He burned with energy and wanted to throw his arms around her, but he was still afraid of what Sirius would do. He was thus caught completely off guard when Sirius slid off the couch and wrapped his long arms around her himself, pulling Remus in close to join them after a moment.

“I’m glad,” Sirius said, squeezing her shoulders. He saw Remus watching him and leaned over to kiss his cheek, apparently unfazed by Dora’s longing or by Remus’ enduring connection with her. Remus smiled, finally understanding that while Sirius might in some ways be more like the bouncy sixteen-year-old he had been at school than the shell of a man he had been after Azkaban, he hadn’t just returned to his old self. He was something new as well.

Remus wrapped one arm around Dora and reached out to stroke their son’s pink hair with the other, closing his eyes and breathing in the scent of the three of them, all mingled together. In that moment, he couldn’t even have said which of them he loved the most. He could feel the rise and fall of Dora’s shoulders under his arm as she breathed, and for the first time in a long time, he felt something like faith in them again. He couldn’t mend what he had broken, but maybe, together, they could build something new.

THE END


End file.
